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January 13, 2010

Holier Than Thou

So Mark McGwire made some comments yesterday about his steroid use. I don't give a shit what he said, but I did like this, though, from SoSHer maufman:

What's next? Will Snoop Dogg admit he smoked pot in the '90s?

I wanted to point out twoposts by John Perricone at Only Baseball Matters. He rightly calls out the sports media for its pompous, holier-than-thou attitudes, its ignorant and infantile criticisms, and its ever-changing benchmarks of what constitutes appropriate honesty and contrition.

13 comments:

My thinking is right in line with Perricone. I'm amazed but not surprised how the media has turned McGwire's apology around and made him a bigger villian. Gammons was ripping him a new one on NESN Sportsdesk last night and, at the end, I'd lost nearly all respect I had for him as a journalist. What sent me over the edge was when he recalled how Andy Pettitte called Gammon's cell phone after he admitted using PEDs and personally apologized to him, which he found credible. WTF? That's what it takes? A personal apology?

McGwire is one part of the equation in the Steroids Era, which includes the commissioner, the owners, and the media. On the latter, someone posted a comment on the Boston Globe site this morning wondering how much the media and corporate America profited by using his name and the name of other players who used at the time. Good question!

Here’s an idea: There was one guy in the administration who cared passionately about baseball; who seemed to sincerely love the game and revere its greatest players; who had a righteous streak, a strong sense of personal honor, and a tendency to see everything in terms of right and wrong; and who clearly had the power to make Alberto Gonzalez jump. This person also cared enough about the problem of steroid abuse to have mentioned it—and been ridiculed as a result—just a year earlier, in his 2004 State of the Union address. I wonder if George W. Bush was the one who blocked McGwire’s immunity deal and, in doing so, consigned McGwire to the ignominy he is just now beginning to try and overcome?

FenFan said... On the latter, someone posted a comment on the Boston Globe site this morning wondering how much the media and corporate America profited by using his name and the name of other players who used at the time. Good question!

How is that a good question, did the media actually want the steroids out of the game , are they ones who put him under a microscope, If corporate america, writers and baseball owners wanted this blown up along a time ago they would have....We possiblly never have a conversation about steroids without Canseco's book.

Look, the steroid era sucks, but at some point and time these guys who used will be outed, and most are..

But I can't sit here and blame others for the acts of grown adults, professionals paid to play a game, they cheated the game, themselves, and mostly the others who played the game clean...

But I don't need to see Bob Knight , Tony Laruusa's best friend, tell me that Gatorade is performance enhancing becuase it has electrlytes, and the whole PED ussue is confusing, McGwire was a beast, Bonds, Clemens, Sosa, Canseco all beasts, now if Gatorade can to that then so be it.....

And McGwire to sit there and tell me Steroids din't help him hit a baseball, really. Am I that big of an idiot....It might not have helped him hit a baseball , but it had a lot to do with him hitting it 500 feet...

someone posted a comment on the Boston Globe site this morning wondering how much the media and corporate America profited by using his name and the name of other players who used at the time. Good question!

How is that a good question

It's a good question because it reminds us of the incredible hypocrisy of the corporate media, and why they are so fucking full of shit. It's an excellent question and makes a lot more sense than your rant, Casey. I mean, no offense, but what are you on about?

It's a good question because it reminds us of the incredible hypocrisy of the corporate media, and why they are so fucking full of shit. It's an excellent question and makes a lot more sense than your rant, Casey. I mean, no offense, but what are you on about?

We knew of the hypocrisy of the media way before steroids...I just think people try to find blame in everything and everyone else when situations like this arise, I just don't see it.....What are you on about? I don't get that either.

Believe me; I am not defending McGwire for using steroids. To tell me that taking steroids had zero effect on the home run totals of that time is laughable. I'm also not going to defend any of the other number of players, known or not, who used performance enhancers.

My point is that the sportswriters and the baseball hierarchy had their suspicions long before 1998 but no one investigated it with much enthusiasm because baseball was recovering from the players’ strike and people discovered that “chicks dig the long ball.” This was the ticket to generating revenue on all fronts; amongst them, television, radio, and print media enjoyed a spike in ratings with the coverage of the home run chase, which translated to more advertising dollars.

The sports media built up these players and now it is dragging them down and no one is questioning its accountability in all of this.

Every member of the media that refused (and continues to refuse) to observe the obvious about these players for the sake of their access to the players/teams is hypocritical, and Gammons is at the front of that list. They only really go after them when there is nothing to lose in terms of access. I've always felt that the reason they have been willing to challenge Bonds even while he played was simply because he was an A-hole who never spoke to the press anyway. If you make nice, praise god and the flag like Pettitte they will let it all slide. McGwire no longer really has anything to offer so they can eat him alive now. That said, McGwire's apology really was just a slick, consultant managed exercise is celebrity reputation repair. He'll be on Oprah next. But the other thing to keep in mind is that sports journalism is not really journalism. It is structurally closer to advertising copy than a 4th estate role. There is very little long term incentive to sportswriters writing what is essentially true, that the players, who are almost all small minded, egomaniacal jerks, are mercenaries and you cheer for branded laundry, and winning is merely the slightly variable human actualization of money.

The argument that his unnatural male enhancement did not help his production is so obviously strained, so obviously faulty in its logic and so obviously not something he believes that it is pretty insulting for him to cry his eyes out and expect anyone to believe this. He could not even be forthright about the amount of his usage.

Why cannot one of these guys (other than Jose!) say something like:

I took PEDS on countless occasions, over multiple years. I did so because injuries healed faster and stronger than without them, so they increased my production because without them I would have been off the field and maybe out of the game years beforehand. I also took them because they allowed me to work out for almost endless hours, building strength that I simply could not have had otherwise. This allowed me to have a slightly quicker bat and it made the kind of warning track, lazy fly ball outs that plague older sluggers turn into 420 foot homers. There was also a strong financial incentive to do them since management appeared to go out of its way to not inquire, taking an obvious, "don't ask, please for the love of god don't tell us" perspective.

In that same SportsDesk segment, Old Hickory mentioned that he voted for McGwire last year "based on previous evidence" but, after his confession, will no longer do so. At a minimum, Big Mac had acknowledged taking androstenedione, a steroid hormone, in the midst of the 1998 season. Why is admitting to steroid use for the extent of his career different? I'm not following the logic...

I'm a lot more concerned with the way the management of baseball looked the other way than I am about the media. The media isn't the game. If a writer sucks, or is hypocritical, his/her reputation takes a hit. There are certainly writers I refuse to read, and if they have a holier-than-thou attitude, fuck 'em. They should report the game, not sit in judgment over it.

But the players who choose to use PEDs and the folks who make the rules are the ones to take the blame for what the Era did to the history of the game, if there's any blame to be given out.

I understand that PED's have been part of the game for a long time and that a lot of people did them. The only thing that makes me angry about what McGwire said is that this notion that PED's didn't help him hit 70 in a season. That's just plain bullshit. Why is he calling Maris's widow to apologize otherwise? There was a lot of doublespeak there.

Like I have always been saying, we collectively pay millions(billions?) to these professional teams and players. We deserve the best money can buy for our entertainment. Everyone of those players should be juiced to the maximum at all times. I want to see 700ft homers. I want to see 120mph fastballs. This is America's fucking pastime. We want things jumbo sized. Do it!